Dear Editor,

I am writing to you as I certainly hope that my fellow colleagues are openly responding to the article on picture books, and the overall condition of early childhood classrooms. I can’t imagine how children will not be affected down the road by the stressful expectations placed upon them in today’s “learning” climate.

I had a wonderful childhood growing up on the Lower East Side, living in a community of caring neighborly people. My mother sent me on errands to the grocery store with a note pinned to my coat. She never worried about me, and I was proud and confident to be given responsibility at age five.

I attended kindergarten when I was four and happily spent countless hours playing games, singing, dancing, creating artistic expression, and listening to stories during story hour. I spent two wondrous years in kindergarten. I clearly remember each and every teacher with great reverence. Well-dressed, perfumed, wearing fascinating broaches and always ready to teach, to share, to listen, and to expect the very best from us. I marveled at the artifacts they brought back from their summer vacations and I know their presentations of travels with maps, photos and objects some to touch, some to observe, greatly inspired by interests in studying anthropology and art history.

Books were a sacred part of my growing up years. Gorgeous picture books, Golden Books, tiny books to treasure, poetry read by my mother visit to the library, attending story hour, joining with a card, and later becoming a member of the Junior Deluxe Club where I selected books that were mailed monthly. To this very day I treasure books, holding them, learning, remembering all the years that I read and reflected on stories illustrations and beautiful thought’s expressed on each page.

My dear parents provided a loving home life, and my school was a haven of learning, creating, friendships, playtime, exploring as a child as childhood should be.

There are no toys in kindergarten today, and picture books are now being considered questionable over chapter books — at age six!! Children are losing the most glorious years of their lives over some newly concocted fad, some money over feelings? What in the world is happening to education as it should be? John Dewey must be spinning in his grave…

Adele P. Unterberg

I was shocked recently to read an editorial pronouncing Barack Obama and John McCain nearly alike in their views on education — a statement that could hardly be further from the truth. I realize it might be possible to believe this if your major source of information is television news, which obsesses over personalities and pigs in lipstick rather than covering serious issues. Ever wonder what 24-hour news shows could do with all that time if they actually spent it evaluating what the candidates plan to do about the issues that affect our lives? But that’s a topic for another blog.

Although we hear little about education from the press, Obama announced a detailed plan a year ago and talks about education regularly. He has pledged over $30 billion annually in new investments in education — from early childhood to support for college tuition — because he believes education is the key to our nation’s future and to each child’s success. Not only is this commitment 30 times greater than anything John McCain has discussed, it is focused on supporting public schools and teachers, rather than punishing them. And, it is based on what we know makes a difference for success.

In a nutshell, educators should support Obama because:

Obama will provide schools and teachers the tools they need to educate all students.

He understands that No Child Left Behind left the money behind, while setting unrealistic goals and providing little support to reach them. In addition to boosting funding, he has promised to overhaul the accountability and assessment provisions of the law so that students are not “spending the year bubbling in answers on standardized tests” but are instead are challenged to think critically, conduct research, engage in scientific investigations, read and write for genuine purposes, and master the skills needed in the 21st century. He wants to be sure that schools are able to teach a full, rich curriculum that includes science, technology, history, the arts and music, as well as reading and math.

He will use a continuous progress approach to evaluating students and schools — one that assesses special education students and English language learners more appropriately and funds stronger services and more productive school improvement efforts. By contrast, McCain is content with No Child Left Behind as it is; he has no plans to increase funding for the law, which he voted against, along with his votes against hiring more teachers to reduce class sizes and funding teacher training.

Obama plans a major technology initiative to put computers, connectivity, and courseware within the reach of every student and teacher, incentives for redesigning middle and high schools, and expansion of after-school and summer enrichment programs, especially for students at risk of dropping out. Obama understands that educators deserve support for their own learning. His plans invest in high-quality preparation for both teachers and principals, service scholarships to underwrite preparation for those who will become teachers, mentoring for all beginning teachers, and useful professional development — not the drive-by workshops or “spray and pray” approaches that most teachers have learned to dread. His plans provide incentives for schools to set aside time during the day for teachers to collaborate.

Obama understands that teachers and schools cannot close the achievement gap by themselves, and there needs to be a broader effort by government and society to support children’s health, welfare, and learning.

With nearly a quarter of our children living in poverty — far more than any other industrialized nation in the world — Obama’s plans to address health care, housing, and employment needs are critically important.

Educators who work in low-income communities know how important it is that Obama will provide health care for all children and families (don’t look for anything meaningful on this score from McCain), as well as preschool education and services that support parenting from 0 to 5. His $10 billion investment will enable 700,000 children to attend Head Start and Early Head Start. Meanwhile, McCain offers empty rhetoric about the importance of preschool, pledging only $200,000 per state, if funding is available — enough for about 20 more children per state.

Obama supports education reforms that are designed in partnership with educators, not imposed on them.

His career ladder initiative will encourage districts to develop innovative compensation plans in conjunction with teachers. These plans should support higher base salaries and approaches that encourage teachers to continually improve their skills and share their expertise with others, for example, by serving as mentor teachers. Recognition for knowledge and skills and for excellent teaching that supports student learning can take many forms, like the career ladders developed with teachers in Arizona, New Mexico, Rochester, New York, Cincinnati, Ohio and Helena, Montana. Meanwhile, McCain’s plan to impose merit pay across the country, without working with teachers to avoid the many failures of the past, will be funded by raiding most of the current Title II funds for professional development and class size reduction.

Obama supports public schools and opposes vouchers.

Whereas McCain plans to expand vouchers, Obama has been a consistent and outspoken opponent of vouchers that would drain money from public education. Twice in the Illinois State Senate, Senator Obama voted against bills that would have created tuition tax credits for parents to use for private and parochial schools — legislation that he believed would create “backdoor vouchers.” In a major speech in July he noted, “The ideal of a public education has always been at the heart of the American promise. It’s why we are committed to fixing and improving our public schools, rather than abandoning them and passing out vouchers.” Obama’s School Innovation Fund will support new school designs launched by teachers, administrators, and parents in public school districts. He will also expand accountability along with funding for public charter schools, so that public funds go to support successful schools that serve all students equitably.

Obama would launch the most comprehensive supports for public education we have seen the 1960s, and he will help develop a 21st century system that can ensure quality schools for every child, every year, in every community. The choice for education could hardly be clearer.

On Tuesday, a combined meeting of the New York State Assembly and Senate selected three members of the Board of Regents, they reappointed Geraldine Chapey and appointed two new members, Betty Rosa and Lester Young.

Rosa was the Community Superintendent in District 8 in the Bronx and highly regarded by the Bronx political and educational pre-Klein establishment. Young was Community Superintendent in District 13 in Brooklyn, served a year under Klein as the first Director of the Office of Student Placement, Youth and Family Support Services (SPYFSS).

Both spent decades working their way up through “the system” and represented all that Klein has been so busy tearing down.

On the legislative side two bills have been introduced in the Assembly that “nibble away” at mayoral control. One bill would require public hearings on school closing with time limits and the second would create community district education council principal selection committees.

The debate over mayoral control models is heating up as legislative bodies and the think tank/not for profit/university community begins to chime in. Diane Ravitch at Pace University, the panel discussion last week at the New School (that will up on a video feed within a week).

There are a number of schools of thought:

• the picador approach: weaken mayoral control now, nibble away at the power of the Chancellor, send a clear signal, and remake the entire system next year.
• the “iron is hot/do it now” approach: there is a growing consensus that mayoral control must be redesigned from the top down … if you wait until next year, in the midst of a mayoral election, election politics will “eat up” any attempt at a reasoned approach to designing a new system. Remake it now.
• the “mayor or the model” approach: would we be so incensed if we had a different mayor? Is it the model or the mayor: do oppose mayoral control or is it the Bloomberg/Klein approach? Why not wait until after the November, 2009 election?
• the “cynical” approach: let mayoral control sunset, a new Mayor is elected and would have to negotiate with the legislature …

The transparency and sunlight of the current governance debate is the essence of a democratic society. All the stakeholders are chiming in … as the months pass the debate will only increase providing the legislature with an early window for changes.

And, of course, a new governor, getting up to speed on the range of issues, is another ingredient in the stew.

It will be an interesting spring.

The recently announced school budget cut is 1.75% of the total allocated 07-08 tax levy budget. Half of the budget allocation has already been spent … the impact of the cut therefore is closer to 4%.

Principals are rightly screaming foul … school after school reports cuts that will seriously impact core education. From an elementary school in the Bronx:

We have been cut $104,000 for this school year with another $300,000 slated for next school year. Frankly the $104,000 right now will be worse than the $300,000 in the fall. As it should be, we spend the bulk of our money at the beginning of the school year on academic support personnel (part and full time), instructional coaches and new curriculum materials. We have no “extra money” sitting in our budget for superfluous items.

Thus we will operate for the rest of the school year without the support personnel and assistance that renders our school of 1,040 K to 8th graders safe and supportive for staff and students. We will have to cut back to $0 the substitute coverage budget. This means our teachers will have to cover each other for absences, thereby receiving no preparation period for the day. Or students will have to be split among the other grade level teachers pushing class size beyond 35 and 36 in many instances. We will have to shorten the term of the part-time academic support and teacher support personnel, leaving our most at-risk students in the lurch and our new teachers without support at the crucial end of the school year. We will have lunch periods covered by administration and teacher volunteers because the four substitute school aides will have to be let go for lack of funds.

School after school is scrambling … cutting mentoring, after school programs, summer programs, and on and on.

A coalition of unions, electeds, parents and advocates are planning to fight back.

Will the folks most impacted by the budgets be able to fight back? Will the Bloomberg/Klein media machine overwhelm the pro child lobby? Will the national campaigns of Clinton/Obama/McCain focus on education?

Next year the Mayor has announced $300 million in additional cuts to the Department of Education.

In 1975 the City, on the verge of bankruptcy, laid off over 10,000 teachers … all elementary school teachers with less than six years of service were laid off. Not surprisingly, no one at Central Headquarters was laid off.

Rule # 1: The primary role of the bureaucracy is to protect and maintain the bureaucracy.

Tweed is busy burnishing their edifice … the Bloomberg/Klein national model … they have successfully convinced the foundation establishment, and come hell or high water, will do nothing to erode what they have created. The boatloads of dollars used to create ARIS or interim assessments or Support Organizations are untouched … the dollars are ripped out of the hearts of schools … out of the programs that directly impact the lives of each and every child.

Legislation in Albany is already beginning to nibble at the edges of Mayoral control as the City Council, Public Advocate and UFT each hold hearings.

Will the Bloomberg/Klein edifice glimmer across the nation or crumble into the ashes of history?

The State Education Department (SED) announced the latest round of Schools Under Registration Review (SURR) schools in a virtually incomprehensible press release. Out of the 700 plus school districts, the many, many thousands of schools, these are the lowest achieving schools in New York State.

In the current Soylent Green world of the Department of Education, the newly identified SURR schools are recycled cadavers, bearing new “numbers,” housed in the same buildings, they are recidivist SURR schools.

Once upon a time: SURR schools were removed from school districts and placed in the Chancellor’s District and, in close collaboration with the teachers union, implemented a highly structured program utilizing nationally recognized tools that worked.

It is no surprise that most SURR schools are located in the poorest areas of the City. High numbers of student living in temporary housing, in foster care, in Special Education classes, namely, the most vulnerable children.

The typical SURR school has an inexperienced principal and many new teachers: a formula for failure. What is so sad is that neediest kids are paired with highly dedicated, motivated teachers who lack the basic classroom skills. Some give up after a few months, others struggle through the year and fall by the wayside, and another cohort takes advantage of the Open Market Transfer Plan and moves along to better run schools with fewer needy children.

The losers are the kids and their families.

Tweed is the antithesis of the Chancellor’s District. The Department has essentially left the education business and entered the field of marketing and referral. What remains is the entrepreneurial principal, purchasing services from an alphabet soup of support organizations and outside vendors. If one principal fails, pick another.

The kids are pawns, sacrificed for the greater good of “value-added,” merit pay, pay for performance … the initiative du jour.

What is so distressing is that the Klein “formula” resonates: at the 2007 NEA Convention candidate Obama supported merit pay … the Aspen Institute, the National Association of Governors … all support some form of merit pay or pay for teacher performance. Sitting in some soigné country club the self-described elite muses,

“ … taxes are out of hand … especially for schools filled children who will never amount to anything … these kids will never succeed … why pay teachers higher salaries … pay for performance will be much cheaper … will weaken unions … the marketplace, not school boards or elected officials, will determine the success or failure of schools … it shouldn’t be “our fault” … whether rich or poor, you should be responsible for your own future … and besides, there’ll be more maids and chauffeurs available.”

Is it true that a young Tweed MBA was perusing yellowed files in the bowels of Ed Central and came across a folder entitled, “Board of Examiners” … and shouted, “What a great idea … testing for competence before you hire someone!”

The announcement that Tweed would prescreen principal applicants is sad.

A little history: A major reform movement of the late 19th century was civil service reform – taking jobs out of the hands of elected officials and establishing a system based upon competitive examinations and rank order exam generated Civil Service lists (see Diane Ravitch, The Great School Wars). Applicants had to pass a rigorous written examination, an interview and a teaching test.

In the early seventies the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund and a number of other civil rights organizations challenged the Principal’s Examination citing a Supreme Court decision (Griggs v. Duke Power Company) averring that if examinations had “disparate impact an ethnic minority” the employer must show that the examination or requirement was “reasonably related” to the job.

The Board of Education settled the suit and abolished supervisory examinations and replaced them with a requirement of a brief interview. Selections were made by school level committees, at least five candidates were recommended to the Superintendent and the final selection was made by the elected school boards. In the mid-nineties the law was changed and all personnel decisions were removed from the school boards and placed with the Superintendent, who was now selected by the Chancellor.

Parents and teachers working together had a significant voice in a process: to select the leader of their school.

Under Mayoral control principals are assigned by Tweed, either out of the Leadership Academy, New Leaders for New Schools, or, in some instances, School Support Organizations. The decisions are rubber stamped by the Tweed Talent Office and the Superintendent under a Chancellor’s Regulation.

The Leadership Academy has been an unpublicized disaster – extremely costly with many graduates leading “failing” schools, either measured by the State Ed Dept or School Progress Reports. Motivation without the requisite skills is a formula for failure.

We know the qualities of an excellent school leader:

• an exemplary classroom teacher
• a body of knowledge: how schools function and how youngsters learn
• leadership and team building skills
• ability to read, write and speak well as a role model to staff and students
• a person who exemplifies academic and intellectual growth

The “value-added” teacher evaluation movement is a charade without effective school leadership, which means hiring the best teaching candidates, working with the teachers in a collaborative manner, making the “tough” decisions, when necessary – that is the “formula” for creating good schools.

The “idea of the moment” public relations mill at Tweed just spins those “new ideas.”

Years ago the high school principal and/or the superintendent was usually the former football coach. Originally I sneered … I came to understand the complexity of coaching and leadership development.

Do you think Bill Belichick would make a better chancellor than Joel Klein?

Teachers and kids in elementary schools are breathing a sigh of relief … the ELA tests are over. This week Middle Schools undergo the ordeal, and High School Regents Exams begin January 22nd. Andy Wolf in the NY Sun is concerned about the lack of supervision by the Department and the possibility of cheating, while another Sun writer urges parents to take their kids out of school on testing days.

Testing is not new. New York State has required standardized tests for many decades. The New York Times published the test results in ascending order: at the top of the list some school in Bayside, and at the other end a school in the Bronx. One school located on a lovely tree lined street with private homes … and the other in a crack ravaged neighborhood with burned out buildings.

Today, however, test scores are not a one day news phenomenon. No Child Left Behind (NCLB) can have dire consequences. If a school does not make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) the school slips into the Schools In Need of Improvement (SINI) category, and if scores continue to ebb the school faces possible closing.

In addition to State sanctions, New York City has the School Progress Report. Although a growth model, it is still primarily based on test scores. Letter grades of “D” or “F” can also lead to closings.

For kids the test results can lead to being “held over.” Again, nothing new, previous chancellors devised “Gates,” bars to moving ahead without improving test scores.

The bottom line: kids still move on to high school well below standards … let’s look at two of the high schools slated for closing. At Franklin K Lane High School, 15.6% of students entered the 9th grade “at or above standard” in ELA, while at Canarsie High School 12.8% of entering 9th grade student were “at or above standard.”

In spite of the “back-slapping,” the self-congratulation, the data is distressing. Huge numbers of kids are not meeting standards, and the Department moves kids into high school who have little or no chance of passing Regents exams.

The threat of school closings and/or the removal of principals drives educational policy at school levels. The Department provides schools with mountains of data, i. e. periodic interim assessments, which result in endless test prep in too many schools. Some schools integrate test prep in usual classroom instruction, other schools simply “drill and kill.”

I am not against testing: parents and teachers must know how kids are doing and how they are doing. Tests not only “rate” kids they “rate” the effectiveness of the instruction.

The Department is NOT providing the tools – the teacher supports, the range of “instruments,” both physical (i. e. books, computers, maps, etc.) and the intellectual supports (teacher centers, mentors, coaches, opportunities to meet with and exchange ideas with colleagues) – that produce effective schools, yes, as measured by test scores.

The current melange of Support Organizations and independent, entrepreneur principals, measured solely by test scores, with a scimitar of school closings/principal removals, does not serve our children.

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”

—Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

What does it mean for a school to be good? It depends on who you ask. Turn to NCLB, and we learn that a school in good standing is one that increases the percentage of kids passing state tests each year. Ask the New York City Department of Education, and we find out that an “A school” is one that improves the academic growth of its students (55%), yet does well on the overall performance measure (30%) and keeps its parents, students and teachers satisfied (15%). As a result of these conflicting definitions, there are many schools in New York City that received As or Bs but are designated schools in need of improvement under NCLB, as well as schools that received Ds or Fs but are in good standing with the state.

New York City educators now face the unenviable dilemma of deciding which system to put first. If schools want to improve their grades on the progress reports, they need to direct their attention to the lowest performing kids since growth is given the most weight and special attention is paid to the lowest one-third of performers. But if schools want to succeed under NCLB, they need to push the high 2s over the proficiency bar. There’s a similar dilemma with high school admissions. Under the progress report system, schools have an incentive to take kids with whom they can demonstrate more progress, but doing so puts them at risk for failing under the federal system.

Of course, there are shortcut strategies that will help schools succeed under both systems, such as neglecting untested subjects like science, social studies, art and music. In both systems, high-performing students are at risk of losing out, since they are likely to pass the tests required for NCLB and can’t demonstrate the growth that the NYC system prizes.

I suspect that the NYC Department of Education’s response to these concerns would be that “good schools and educators are above playing the system in the ways described above, and will respond by improving the quality of education available to all kids.” In this view, there is no NCLB/NYC Progress Report Catch-22.

The irony of the Department of Education’s Janus-faced position on incentives should not be lost on us. On one hand, the DOE is enamored with incentives and argues that we need more of them precisely because of their strong impacts on behavior. On the other, the DOE chastises schools that respond to these incentives by losing non-tested subjects, attending narrowly to tested skills in reading and math, drilling test-taking skills, and focusing attention on one group of students.

But we can’t have it both ways. Either the incentives matter, or they don’t. And the Progress Reports undeniably create a different set of incentives than NCLB.

Readers, your comments are appreciated here. How is your school reacting to the Progress Reports? Do you think NYC educators will prioritize the Progress Reports over NCLB?

Every public and charter school student in grades 3 – 8 will be taking the New York State English Language Arts (ELA) exam in two weeks. The results of the exam are the core of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and a major section of the School Progress Report.

From the NCLB perspective the results of the exam measure “proficiency” and schools can be branded as Schools in Need of Improvement (SINI) or Schools Under Registration Review (SURR) … and this designation is one element in determining school closings. The exam is a major factor, along with “growth,” in deciding what letter grade a school gets on its School Progress Report.

The NCLB methodology is zip code based, and states have tweaked the data for their own benefit … while the School Progress Reports fail the “validity and reliability” test.

Parents and teachers want to know how their school is doing in comparison with other schools as well as against an agreed upon standard.

Should accountability be a “photograph” of a school, or a measurement of a school over time?

Should poverty be a factor in any rubric?

How about the experience level of teachers?

Regardless of the accountability tool, what should the consequences be if a school is not making sufficient progress?

To what extent should parent and teacher opinions be imbedded in a school accountability tool?

One clear lesson of NCLB has been the mine field it has created. The National Education Association (NEA) wants to sink NCLB and leave it up to the States. The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) wants to “fix” the law. Elected officials all oppose the current law, but, aside from vague comments, avoid specifics in discussing a replacement.

It is very much in the interest of public schools to have an agreed upon accountability tool. We lobby for more school funding, for lower class size, for more parent/teacher input, etc. … we can’t also say, ” … we don’t want any assessment measurement.”

Our problem: can parents and teachers agree upon a tool, a methodology for measuring schools?

While it is a complex and difficult task it is essential that, as teachers and as union members, we pursue a way of measuring schools, and, that we seek the “right” tool.

The controversy over giving letter grades to New York City schools last month demonstrates two features of modern accountability: it has bundled different types of accountability together, and the bundling of accountability has gone too far.

On November 5, New York City revealed single letter grades assigned to each public school in the five boroughs. Patterned after Florida’s assignment of letter grades, it boiled down statistical data to a single judgment. Unlike in Florida, the inconsistencies and illogic in the letter grades have become the center of vigorous debate.

But the controversy has obscured an important point: while the assignment of letter grades is politically clever—if students receive letter grades, why can’t schools?—it also bundles several different features of accountability into a single package. The same Joel Klein who fought Microsoft’s bundling of software is now engaged in bundling of accountability for public relations purposes.

The single letter grades allowed Schools Chancellor Klein to bundle together several different concepts—independent evaluation of schools, statistical measurement of achievement, and the reduction of all information down to a simple message for public relations purposes: the letter grade.

Of those three concepts, the independent evaluation of schools is the most valuable part of accountability. Citizens deserve to have independent information about what schools are doing. Unlike decades ago, when administrators had substantial autonomy and independence from political processes, we do not trust schools to operate without some outside check. In a school system with a million students, New York’s parents and taxpayers need to know that their schools are educating all students.

But should that independent evaluation consist only of statistical data? In New York City and in No Child Left Behind, accountability relies entirely on statistical formulae, with the argument that achievement data and hard statistics are the only objective measurement of schools.

But in our society, we have a variety of independent evaluation techniques, from health inspectors to fact-finding commissions and the court system. In these other systems, human judgment is rarely vacated in favor of statistics. The key feature of these systems is the exclusion of parties from decision-making. In real accountability systems, distance from self-interest is the measure of independence.

That independence does not require a brain-dead reliance on statistics. In most systems of independent judgment, statistics are a tool and not the sole way to make decisions. A judge who failed to use her or his judgment would rightly be accused of abdicating her or his responsibility to think. In truth, independent evaluation of schools can use different types of information, including student achievement data, visitation reports by teams of outsiders, and student and parent feedback.

The bundling of statistics with independent judgment is common in school accountability, with statistical formulae used in almost all states before 2002 and now nationwide with No Child Left Behind. But what New York City shares uniquely with Florida is the reduction of all information about a school into the letter grade, a single datum for judging schools and shifting responsibility.

I understand the appeal of this reduction. As a student, I received letter grades. Why can’t schools receive them as well? In his first year as Florida’s governor, Jeb Bush used this parallel brilliantly. In 1999, he pushed a high-stakes accountability system through the Florida legislature, promising that the transparency of letter grades would provoke schools to improve.

To many, that improvement seemed plausible. Because former Governor Bush relied on a testing system that already existed, and because letter grades are familiar to adults from their own experiences, the imposition of a giant new apparatus seemed a reasonable shift in accountability.

The new system of letter grades provoked change in Florida, but it is not clear whether they improved schools. NAEP data on reading achievement of fourth graders have improved, but Florida’s NAEP eighth-grade reading scores have stagnated, and Florida’s NAEP eighth-grade math scores are on the same trajectory that started in the early 1990s.

What Governor Bush’s accountability system accomplished was as much symbolic as substantive. For public-relations purposes, the assignment of a single letter grade to schools shifted responsibility from the state to the principal. Grades go up, or they go down, and they can also go up on a school’s streetside marquis: “We are an A School.” School grades provide a way to distribute a message about accountability in a single question: “What’s your grade?” The state of Florida has never graded itself, though Florida’s constitution lays the responsibility for providing an adequate education on the state.

The bundling of accountability is not just a way to manage schools but a way to package accountability for public relations purposes. Bundling accountability controls the message and shifts responsibility. By monopolizing judgment of schools in a centralized system, Chancellor Klein is attempting the same control in New York City.

In the same way that Microsoft bundled software to exclude competitors, Klein has bundled accountability to exclude other ways of judging schools. To the public relations honchos that Klein hired, message control is the most important feature of accountability. That is why New York City’s schools spent taxpayer money gathering data with which to smear critic Diane Ravitch. The same man who fought Microsoft on legal and moral grounds is now using tactics that he criticized when Microsoft engaged in them, and the irony is palpable and largely ignored.

What New York City’s parents and other citizens are now realizing is that bundling accountability is also bungling accountability. The letter grades are inconsistent with the judgments that parents and others familiar with schools know. The logic of so-called peer comparisons is unraveling with closer scrutiny, and some reports are emerging that the letter grades were fiddled with for political purposes.

We all can learn from the mistakes of New York City and Florida. A monopoly of centralized accountability serves the public-relations interests of the politicians at the head of those systems, not the public interest of citizens. We need to unbundle accountability, disentangling the value of independent judgment from the public relations role of a single label.